Vanessa Carlton

Vanessa Lee Carlton (born August 16, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist.

Carlton was born on August 16, 1980, in Milford, Pennsylvania, the first of three children of Edmund "Ed" Carlton, a pilot, and Heidi Lee, a pianist and school music teacher.

She has a sister, Gwen, and a brother, Edmund.

Carlton’s mother comes from a Jewish family in Queens, New York.

Her interest in music began at an early age.

At the age of two she visited Disneyland, and played "It's a Small World" on the piano when she came home.

Her mother began to tutor her, and she was introduced to classical music.

By the age of 9 she had become passionate about ballet, and in 1994, aged 14, she enrolled at the School of American Ballet.

Carlton has experienced depression and bouts of bulimia and used her platform to open up the discussion of these often taboo subjects.

After graduating, she sang in nightclubs and began to feel comfortable on stage.

She later moved to New York City, where she attended Columbia University for one year before dropping out and had a stint as a waitress in Hell's Kitchen.

Carlton met songwriter/producer Peter Zizzo at a singer-songwriter circle and was invited to his studio to record a demo.

Three months later she was signed by Jimmy Iovine to A&M Records and began work on an album of her songs, to be titled Rinse.

This album was never released, but a few tracks were reworked for Be Not Nobody.

One song, "Carnival", was re-recorded as "Dark Carnival" for the video game SpyHunter 2.

Other tracks from Rinse were "Interlude" (later known as "A Thousand Miles"), "Rinse", "Ordinary Days" (later known as "Ordinary Day"), "Twilight", "Pretty Baby", "All I Ask", and "Superhero".

The first five of these were included in her first album, Be Not Nobody, together with a cover of the Jagger/Richards song "Paint It Black".

Other unreleased tracks from her early demo tapes include "Faces", "Meggie Sue", "Little Mary", "Burden", "Wonder", "Devil Dance", and "Last Fall".

After hearing Carlton's demo of "A Thousand Miles", A&M president Ron Fair organized recording sessions and produced and arranged the song himself.

"A Thousand Miles" became a hit, peaking in the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, and went on to become the sixth-most-played song of the year.

It garnered Grammy Award nominations for "Record of the Year", "Song of the Year", and "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)."

Fair produced the rest of the album.

The tracks were recorded in Los Angeles at IGA Studios, Santa Monica; Henson Studios, Hollywood; and Royaltone Studios, Burbank.

Carlton played piano and sang vocals; other instrumentation included a backing band, a 60-piece orchestra and sitar on "Paint It Black".

Her debut album, Be Not Nobody (2002) released by A&M Records, received a platinum certification in the United States, and her debut single "A Thousand Miles" spent 41 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned three Grammy nominations.

The album also spawned the singles "Ordinary Day" and "Pretty Baby".

Be Not Nobody was released in April 2002 and appeared at number five on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 102,000 units sold.

It went on to sell more than two million copies worldwide.

Two more singles, "Ordinary Day" and "Pretty Baby", were released.

Carlton toured the US in 2002 to promote the album, opening for the Goo Goo Dolls and Third Eye Blind, before headlining her own tour at the end of 2002 and touring Europe in 2003.

Carlton collaborated with other artists before the release of her second album.

She provided the descant vocals for the Counting Crows version of the Joni Mitchell song "Big Yellow Taxi", played piano for Italian singer Zucchero, along with Haylie Ecker on violin for the song "Indaco Dagli Occhi Del Cielo", and provided backing vocals for "Moving On" by Kimya Dawson for her album Hidden Vagenda.

Her next album, Harmonium (2004) debuted at number 33 on the Billboard 200.

The album marked a stalwart divergence from pressure from record label executives who wanted to influence the recording.

Carlton's second album, Harmonium, was released in November 2004.

After departing from A&M in 2005, Carlton released Heroes & Thieves in 2007.

Despite minimal chart success, the album was a critical success, receiving praise from Metacritic, Allmusic, PopMatters, and USA Today.

Carlton independently produced her next two albums, Rabbits on the Run (2011) and Liberman (2015), which were acclaimed by critics for both its personal subject matter and departure from her previous musical style.

She made her Broadway debut with a leading role in the Carole King musical Beautiful in 2019.

She released her sixth studio album Love Is an Art in 2020, and has additionally released the EPs Hear The Bells (2012) and Blue Pool (2015).